Replaying life's tape

Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 103, Issue 7, 2006, Pages 336-362

  Beatty, John ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 46149093073     PISSN: 0022362X     EISSN: 19398549     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/jphil2006103716     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. There had been earlier attempts to stress the importance of"history" in evolutionary biology, for example, R.C. Lewontin, "The Principle of Historicity in Evolution, " in Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (Philadelphia:Wistar Institute, 1967). But something like a "movement" developed inthe nineteen-seventies and eighties.
2. There were also, around this time, calls for greater attention to historyin systematics, biogeography, ecology, and conservation biology (for aninsightful overview, see S.E. Kingsland, "Afterword, " in Modeling Nature: Episodes in the History of Population Ecology (Chicago: University Press, 1995), pp. 213-51).
3. There were calls for taking history more seriously in the social sciencesas well. See, for example, J.H. Goldthorpe, "The Uses of History in Sociology: Reflections on Some Recent Tendencies, " British Journal of Sociology, XLII (1991): 211-30;
4. and J.M. Bryant, "Evidence and Explanation in History and Sociology:Critical Reflections on Goldthorpe's Critique of Historical Sociology, "British Journal of Sociology, LXV (1994): 3-19. It would be very interesting toinvestigate the various concepts of "history" involved, and thereasons why history became so important in so many areas at this time. My aimshere are much narrower.
5. Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (New York: Norton, 1989), p. 51 (hereafter in citations WL).
6. J.B. Losos, T.R. Jackman, A. Larson, K. de Queiroz, and L.Rodríguez-Schettino, "Contingency and Determinism in Replicated Adaptive Radiations of Island Lizards, " Science, CCLXXIX (1998): 2115-18;
7. M. Travisano, J.A. Mongold, A.F. Bennett, and R.E. Lenski, "Experimental Tests of the Roles of Adaptation, Chance, and History in Evolution, " Science, CCLXVII (1995): 87-90.
8. For references to the Losos and Travisano studies in connection with Gould's views, see S.B. Emerson, "A Macroevolutionary Study of Historical Contingency in the Fanged Frogs of Southeast Asia, " Biological Journal ofthe Linnean Society, LXXIII (2001): 139-51;
9. P.H. Harvey and L. Partridge, "Different Routes to Similar Ends, " Nature, CCXCII (1998): 552-53;
10. R.B. Huey, G.W. Gilchrist, M.L. Carlson, D. Berrigan, and L. Serra, "Rapid Evolution of a Geographic Cline in Size in an Introduced Fly, "Science, CCLXXXVII (2000): 308-09;
11. R.C. Mac Lean and G. Bell, "Divergent Evolution during an Experimental Adaptive Radiation, " Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, CCLXX (2003): 1645-50;
12. M. Matos, T. Avelar, and M.R. Rose, "Variation in the Rate of Convergent Evolution: Adaptation to a Laboratory Environment in Drosophilasubobscura, " Journal of Evolutionary Biology, XV (2002): 673-82;
13. E.B. Taylor and J.D. McPhail, "Historical Contingency and Ecological Determinism Interact to Prime Speciation in Sticklebacks, Gasterosteus, "Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, CCLXVII (2000): 2375-84;
14. and B. Vanhooydonck and D.J. Irschick, "Is Evolution Predictable?Evolutionary Relationships of Divergence in Ecology, Performance and Morphologyin Old and New World Lizard Radiations, " in P. Aerts, A. D'Août and R. Van Damme, eds., Topics in Functional and Ecological Vertebrate Morphology(Maastricht: Shaker, 2002), pp. 191-204.
15. For an interesting contrast with the natural and laboratory experimentsreported by the Losos and Travisano studies, see the artificial life experimentsof G. Yedid and G. Bell, "Macroevolution Simulated with Autonomously Replicating Computer Programs, " Nature, CDXX (2002): 810-12;
16. and D. Wagenaar and C Adami, "Influence of Chance, History and Adaptation on Evolution in Digitalia, " Artificial Life, X (2004): 181-90.Both explicitly address Gould's views on contingency.
17. Another major research program that has clear bearing on Gould's views -but that is not explicitly cast in those terms - is Dolph Schluter and hiscolleagues' investigations of parallel, seemingly replayable, adaptiveradiations in threespine sticklebacks: D. Schluter and J.D. McPhail, "Ecological Character Displacement and Speciation in Sticklebacks, "American Naturalist, CXL (1992): 85-108;
18. Schluter, "Adaptive Radiation in Sticklebacks: Size, Shape, and Habitat Use Efficiency, " Ecology, LXXIV (1993): 699-709;
19. Schluter, "Experimental Evidence that Competition Promotes Divergence in Adaptive Radiation, " Science, CCLXVI (1994): 798-801;
20. and H.D. Rundle, L. Nagel, J.W. Boughman, and Schluter, "Natural Selection and Parallel Speciation in Sympatric Sticklebacks, " Science, CCLXXXVII (2000): 306-08.
21. See the illustrations throughout Wonderful Life. See alsohttp://www.nmnh. si.edu/ paleo/shale/index.html.
22. The analogy of "replaying the tape" is similar to an analogyused earlier by Simon Conway Morris in contemplating the same phenomena: ...ifthe clock was turned back so metazoan diversification was allowed to rerunacross the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary, it seems possible that the successfulbody plans emerging from this initial burst of evolution may have includedwiwaxids rather than mollusks. - "The Middle Cambrian Metazoan Wiwaxiacorrugata (Matthew) from the Burgess Shale and Ogygopsis Shale, British Columbia, Canada, " Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B CCCVII (1985): 507-82, p. 572; quoted by Gould, WL 238.
23. See also WL 290; and Gould, "Boyle's Law and Darwin's Details, "Natural History, CIV (1995): 8-11, 68-71, especially pp. 69-71.
24. Gould and D.S. Woodruff, "History as a Cause of Area Effects: An Illustration from Cerion on Great Inagua, Bahamas, " British Journal of the Linnean Society, XL (1990): 67-98.
25. For example, Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Cambridge:Harvard, 2002).
26. Losos and B. Sinervo, "The Effects of Morphology and Perch Diameteron Sprint Performance of Anolis Lizards, " Journal of Experimental Biology CXLV (1989): 25-30.
27. For an overview of these ecomorphs, see E.E. Williams, "Ecomorphs, Faunas, Island Size, and Diverse End Points in Island Radiations, " in R.B.Huey, E.R. Pianka, and T.W. Schoener, eds., Lizard Ecology: Studies of a Model Organism (Cambridge: Harvard, 1983), pp. 326-70.
28. For photos of the ecomorphs, see P.H. Harvey and L. Partridge, "Different Routes to Similar Ends, " Nature, CCCXCII (1998): 552-53;and Todd Jackman's Anole page at http://www87.homepage.villanova.edu/ todd.jackman/anolis/anolis.html.
29. Personal communication, October 15, 2002. Perhaps Gould had thethen-recent Losos study in mind when he proposed a qualified version of thereplay metaphor in 1990: "What would happen if we could rewind the tape oflife to some moment in the fairly distant past and simply let it runagain?" - Gould, The Individual in Darwin's World: The Second Edinburgh Medal Address (Edinburgh: University Press, 1990), p. 7.
30. Travisano, F. Vasi, and Lenski, "Long-Term Experimental Evolution in Escherichia coli. III: Variation among the Replicate Populations in Correlated Responses to Novel Environments, " Evolution, XLIX (1995): 189-200.
31. See their reference to G.S. Mani and B.C. Clarke, "Mutational Order:A Major Stochastic Process in Evolution, " Proceedings of the Royal Societyof London B, CCXL (1990): 29-37.
32. Lenski and Travisano, "Dynamics of Adaptation and Diversification: A10, 000 Generation Experiment with Bacterial Populations, " Proceedings ofthe National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, XCI (1994):6808-14;
33. and P.A. Johnson, Lenski, and F.C. Hoppensteadt, "Theoretical Analysis of Divergence in Mean Fitness between Initially Identical Populations, " Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, CCLIX (1995):125-30.
34. Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, p. 932.
35. Concerning the seeming non sequitur that concludes Gould's footnote, Ithink it makes more sense if you replace "Apparently" with"Moreover" (The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, pp. 932-33).
36. Gallie, Philosophy and the Historical Understanding (New York: Schocken, 1964), p. 26.
37. Gould and Lewontin, "The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme, " Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, CCV (1979): 581-98, p. 585.
38. Beatty, "Why Do Biologists Argue Like They Do?" Philosophy of Science S, LXVI (1997): 231-42.
39. And even if historical contingency is somehow determined to play a rolein most every case, there will still be questions about how big a role relativeto simultaneously coacting factors. See S. Mitchell, "On Pluralism and Competition in Evolutionary Explanations, " American Zoologist, XXXII(1992): 135-44.